Amber (27 page)

‘Shopping for your husband?’ the man behind the counter asked brightly.

‘Yes, I am,’ Kitty said shortly, worried that Simon might come back and wishing the man would just get on with it.

‘And a lucky man he is, too, if you don’t mind me saying, missus.’ The man frowned. ‘Small, though. You sure you’ve got the right sizes?’

‘Positive, thank you,’ Kitty replied.

‘Ah well, you know the man you’re married to, I suppose.’

Kitty did—and that he’d be almost apoplectic if he knew what she was planning. She paid for her purchases and left the shop.

But as she stood in the doorway of a shoemaker’s further down the street considering whether she wanted a new pair of boots, she felt a determined tugging at her skirts. Looking down,
she encountered the face of perhaps the scruffiest little child she had ever seen.

She was Maori, although quite light-skinned, and aged anywhere between three and five, Kitty guessed. Her dirty, matted hair hung past her shoulders, and her sweet, heart-shaped face was filthy with what looked like many months of accumulated grime. She was wearing a sleeveless man’s shirt tied at the waist with a piece of string, and her small feet were bare, the toes stubbed and scabbed.

‘Hello,’ Kitty said.

The child, the whites of her eyes bright in her grubby face, stared determinedly up at Kitty and yanked even more vigorously on her skirts.

‘What do you want?’ Kitty asked kindly.

The child opened her free hand to show what it held. Kitty bent to look, and saw that it was a nugget of gum, or copal, from a kauri tree. It had been highly polished to enhance its beautiful gold and honey hues, and there appeared to be some sort of insect trapped within it.

‘That’s very pretty,’ she said. ‘Is it yours?’

The little girl didn’t appear to understand her, so Kitty changed to Maori and said it again. After a few seconds, the child nodded.

‘Well,’ Kitty said, ‘you need to take very good care of it. You don’t want to lose it.’

The child shook her head angrily and again thrust the piece of amber forward. Then she pointed meaningfully at Kitty’s reticule. Did the little girl want her to buy the amber?

‘No, it’s yours,’ she said, still in Maori. ‘You keep it. It’s quite valuable.’

Angrily, the child stamped her bare foot.

Kitty looked up and down the street. ‘Where’s your mother, sweetheart?’

But the child remained mute.

‘Look, wait here a minute,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

She went into the shoemaker’s and rapped on the counter. A man wearing a heavy leather apron appeared from the back of the shop.

‘Good morning, madam. How can I help you?’

‘There’s a little Maori girl outside,’ Kitty explained. ‘I’m trying to find out where her mother is.’

Realising he probably wasn’t going to make a sale, the man’s demeanour changed. ‘A scruffy little kid, about three or four?’ he asked. When Kitty nodded, he said, ‘Don’t know if she has a mother, that one. She’s often hanging around in the street hawking bits and pieces. Stolen, I’ve no doubt. Just shoo her away—that usually gets rid of her eventually.’

Aghast, Kitty stared at him. ‘But she’s only a tiny child!’

The man shrugged, said, ‘Not one of ours, though, is she?’ and turned away.

Kitty glared at the back of his head and felt like swinging her reticule at it.

From the doorway into the back of his shop he said over his shoulder, ‘And watch it, she’s a known pickpocket.’

Kitty marched outside, expecting the little girl still to be there, but she was nowhere to be seen.

‘Damn,’ Kitty swore and set off down the street, looking down the narrow alleyways between shops and peering into doorways in case the child was hiding. She couldn’t possibly just forget about her, not after looking into those enormous brown eyes and seeing with horror the way her arm and wrist bones had protruded so pathetically.

Where the hell had she gone? Kitty passed a grog-shop, then a grocer’s, a general merchant’s, a hotel, the offices of an auctioneer, a cabinetmaker’s and a butcher, when something registered in her mind. Had that pile of rags in among those barrels just moved?
She turned around and went back, then cautiously made her way between two buildings, holding up her skirts and carefully avoiding the worst of the fly-ridden butcher’s offal and rubbish. She slowed, then peeked over the top of a barrel.

The little girl was squatting with her back to it, contemplating half a putrid-looking scotch egg. Her brown fingers extended and she delicately picked the maggots off it, then raised it to her mouth.

Kitty reached over the barrel and knocked the disgusting thing out of the child’s hand. She squawked and leapt to her feet, her face a picture of childish rage. Then she had a tantrum, shrieking and stamping her bare feet, which was a great relief to Kitty—at least the girl was showing some signs of being a normal child. She scooped her up and carried her back out onto the street, then set her down. The girl immediately produced the nugget of amber again and offered it to Kitty.

‘No,’ Kitty said firmly in Maori, ‘I’m not buying it, but you are coming with me.’ She reached out to grasp the little girl’s arm, but the child was off again, quickly disappearing into an alleyway on the opposite side of the street.

But Kitty had seen something in the girl’s eyes for a fleeting second, something approaching an uneasy mix of fear and hope. So she set off herself, her heart thumping wildly with anticipation, walking slowly along Shortland Street and stopping every few yards to look into shops, up at the sky, along the street, anywhere so that the child had time to come out of hiding. By the time she reached the intersection with Bank Street, she knew the girl was following her. But she forced herself not to look, and when she paused to cross the street, she felt a small hand slip into hers.

As they crossed the street together, Kitty was shocked to feel tears streaming down her face.

‘Oh, Kitty, no,’ Simon said in dismay.

‘I’m just going to take her back to Mrs Fleming’s and give her a hot bath and something to eat,’ Kitty explained quickly before he could say anything else. ‘And then I’m going to find out who she belongs to, if in fact she actually has parents or a guardian. I wonder if she’s an orphan?’

‘That’s kidnap, Kitty,’ Simon warned. ‘You can’t just waltz off with her.’

‘But we’ve been standing here for ages in full view, and no one’s approached us,’ Kitty reasoned.

‘Have you asked her who her guardians are?’

‘Of course I have, but she doesn’t seem to be able to speak.’

Simon’s belly squirmed with anxiety as he gazed down at the little girl. She stared boldly back at him, her hand firmly gripping Kitty’s skirts. He closed his eyes and blew out a heartfelt sigh, knowing that this could only lead to trouble and wishing he had never agreed to leave Kitty to her own devices.

‘Come on then,’ he said with a very deep sense of foreboding. ‘I’ll carry your shopping. Did you buy something nice?’

‘Just a few bits and pieces,’ Kitty replied, feeling a twinge of guilt as she handed him her parcel.

Kitty had a key to Mrs Fleming’s front door so they let themselves in. Kitty was hoping to smuggle the child up to her room, but unfortunately Mrs Fleming rushed out of the kitchen to meet them.

‘Good morning, Mr Bullock. You’ll never guess, Mrs Farrell, I was at the grocer’s earlier—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘What on earth have you got there?’ she said, regarding the little girl with a look of extreme distaste.

‘I found her on Shortland Street. I think she may be an orphan.’

‘She’s
filthy
,’ Mrs Fleming correctly observed. ‘She can’t stay here.’

Kitty fixed her with a stern look. ‘Mrs Fleming, where is your sense of Christian charity? The child is hungry and in need of help. Who am I, or indeed you, to turn her away from God’s succour?’

Mrs Fleming tried unsuccessfully to arrange her expression into one of compassion, then bent down and peered into the child’s hair. ‘Oh my Lord, she’s got head lice!’ she exclaimed in horror, and scurried off down the hall. From the safety of the kitchen she called, ‘You can put her in the bath on the back porch.’

Kitty left the little girl sitting on the back steps with Simon, and waited while Mrs Fleming put together a plate containing two thick slices of fresh bread, several of roast pork, some pickled cucumber and a square of cheese. She handed it to Kitty, saying gruffly, ‘I’ll agree, she does look very undernourished.’

The child pounced on the food, shoving the bread into her mouth and tearing at the meat.

‘Hey, hey,’ Simon said, ‘slow down, you’ll get heartburn.’ He reached to take the meat off her, but she slapped at his hand and jammed the entire slice of pork into her mouth. It was too much and a moment later she choked. Simon patted her firmly on the back until the meat flew out and landed in the dirt at the foot of the stairs. Kitty watched in appalled fascination as the child lunged after it and pushed it back into her mouth.

‘My God,’ she said. ‘When do you think she last had a square meal?’

‘Not for some time, I’d say,’ Simon muttered. He looked sadly up at Kitty. ‘I think you’re right. I think she must be an orphan.’

‘But surely her people would have been looking after her? She must belong to one of the tribes around here,’ Kitty said, her heart aching. ‘And she can’t be completely wild, she understands some Maori.’

‘She looks like a half-caste to me,’ Simon said. ‘Perhaps she was abandoned because of it.’

‘Oh, surely not? How could anyone be that cruel?’ But Kitty knew that people could in fact be that unkind, Maoris and Europeans alike, and indeed plenty of other peoples she had encountered around the world.

The child poked the last bite of cheese into her mouth and sat there chewing it until she finally swallowed. She burped, looked up at Kitty with a very odd expression on her face, then opened her mouth wide and vomited everything back up. Kitty skipped out of the way, but the steps were splattered and so were the girl’s feet.

Cursing, Simon jumped up and went inside for something to clean up the mess.

He returned with several pieces of rag and said, ‘Perhaps we should have started her with something like bread soaked in milk. Her stomach’s obviously not used to a lot of food at once. Mrs Fleming’s got hot water on the fire for a bath.’

He knelt and began to clean the sick off the little girl’s feet. Kitty watched him, thinking what a good, loving father he might have made. The child watched him, too, and a moment later started to make a strange sort of whimpering noise that Kitty realised was weeping. Huge tears rolled down her dirty cheeks and a dollop of watery snot slid out of her nose.

‘Oh, the poor wee thing,’ Kitty murmured, feeling fresh tears prick at her own eyes. Digging out her handkerchief, she bent down and wiped the girl’s nose and upper lip.

‘I don’t suppose she has a name,’ Simon said, sitting back on his heels.

‘Yes, she does, actually,’ Kitty replied with no hesitation at all. ‘It’s Amber.’ Then she went inside to remonstrate with Mrs Fleming about the child having to have her bath on the porch.

‘The breeze is rather brisk,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for her catching a cold. I think she would be better off in front of the fire in the parlour.’

Mrs Fleming looked alarmed. ‘But she’s infested with vermin. They can jump yards, those lice.’ Then she shook her head in defeat and added reluctantly, ‘I suppose I can put down a piece of oilcloth. But mind she doesn’t wander around until she’s been thoroughly cleaned. I’ve got my other boarders to think of, you know.’

Kitty said gratefully, ‘Yes, Mrs Fleming, I know. Thank you. I’ll start the fire now.’

When the fire in the parlour had been lit, Kitty carried in the tin bath and set it down near the hearth on the oilcloth Mrs Fleming had provided—a piece almost as wide as the parlour itself. Then she started to bring the water through from the kitchen and pour it into the bath.

Mrs Fleming appeared and held out a small bottle.

Kitty took it. ‘What is it?’

‘Lavender water. It might make her smell a little sweeter.’

‘That’s very thoughtful, Mrs Fleming.’ Kitty beamed at her. ‘Thank you.’ Mrs Fleming was right—Amber did smell rather pungent.

The landlady blushed, firelight glinting off her spectacles. ‘Don’t use it all, mind.’

Kitty promised she wouldn’t, and went outside to fetch Amber, who was now wading her way through a bowl of bread and milk, topped off, if Kitty wasn’t mistaken, with brown sugar.

‘Did you make her that?’ she asked Simon.

He shook his head. ‘Mrs Fleming did.’

When Amber had finished, Kitty took her inside and was in the process of testing the temperature of the water when Amber suddenly lifted the hem of her filthy shirt, squatted and began to
urinate on the oilcloth. It was too late for Kitty to stop her so she watched helplessly, and then, praying that Mrs Fleming wouldn’t choose that moment to come in, hastily dropped a towel over the puddle. It hadn’t occurred to her that the child probably wouldn’t be, well, house-trained.

‘We’re going to have to do something about that, aren’t we?’ she said as she untied the string at Amber’s waist, then opened the buttons on her shirt.

Kitty gasped as the shirt slid off the child’s thin shoulders and fell to the floor: Amber’s torso was covered with ugly, mottled bruises. Kitty turned her around and saw that the same bruising marked her back and skinny buttocks.

‘Oh, my poor darling, what’s happened to you?’ she whispered.

But Amber said nothing, merely stood with her head down and her hair falling across her face.

Kitty went to the door and called out to Simon. When he appeared in the hallway she said angrily, ‘Someone has kicked or beaten the hell out of her, Simon. We need to get a doctor to come and look at her.’

Simon looked as shocked as she felt. ‘What? Is she hurt?’

‘I don’t know. The bruises don’t look new, but there are a lot of them.’

Mrs Fleming emerged from the kitchen to stand in the hallway, her face grim.

Then Simon’s hand crept up to cover his mouth as something truly horrible occurred to him. ‘What about, well, is she…has she…?’